Two boards endorse police station project CPC to hear request for $500,000 in community preservation funds tonight

Friday

May 9, 2014 at 12:01 AM

MIDDLEBORO — The police station renovation and addition project picked up two endorsements in the past week as the selectmen voted unanimously Monday night to recommend favorable action at town meeting and to support the building committee's application for $500,000 in Community Preservation Act funds. Earlier, the Capital Planning Committee voted to recommend that voters at the May 27 annual town meeting approve the project.

JANE LOPES

MIDDLEBORO — The police station renovation and addition project picked up two endorsements in the past week as the selectmen voted unanimously Monday night to recommend favorable action at town meeting and to support the building committee's application for $500,000 in Community Preservation Act funds. Earlier, the Capital Planning Committee voted to recommend that voters at the May 27 annual town meeting approve the project.

Meanwhile, bids were opened and committee members announced Monday night that the low bid was $12.13 million compared with earlier cost estimates of $12.7 million. Town meeting voters will be asked to approved borrowing for the project, and if they do, a special election to be held on June 14 will determine whether voters are willing to pay additional property taxes to pay for the renovation of the existing police station and a 15,000-square-foot addition as well as a 3,000-square-foot garage.

The cost to the average homeowner with a house valued at about $311,000 would be $126 for the first year of the 30-year bond that would pay for the project. The cost would drop each year since the borrowing would be done through a debt exclusion override to the Proposition 2 1/2 tax levy limit. When the bond was paid off, the tax would end. A debt exclusion override paid for the John T. Nichols Middle School and is now nearly completed, it was noted Monday night.

The property tax increase would be slightly less if the Community Preservation Committee (CPC) approves a request from the Police Station Building Committee for $500,000 to be paid at the rate of $50,000 a year for 10 years, and if town meeting voters also approve the measure. The CPC and the building committee will meet tonight at 7 in the Housing Authority's community building at 8 Benton St.

Building Committee member Ted Eayrs said the committee, which was established in 2004, looked from every angle at the two charges it was given: to provide the Police Deparment with modern quarters and to find a reuse for the existing police station, which was built in the first quarter of the 19th century and is listed on the National Register. He said the committee finally came to the conclusion that the best and most economical solution was to renovate the existing building for offices and training/meeting space and to build an addition with all the modern facilities the department needed.

Committee member Neil Rosenthal said constructing a police station elsewhere and renovating the former Peirce Store — the current police station — would have been far more costly than the proposed project.

"We are spending less than we would in any other scenario," Mr. Rosenthal said after reviewing several options addressed by the committee over the years. "And this way we also preserve what is, next to the Town Hall, the most significant building in downtown Middleboro."

Mr. Rosenthal said as a businessman he is one of the town's largest taxpayers and is not known as a lavish spender. "If I'm for this, it's probably financially the right way to go," he said.

Joseph Sullivan of Daedalus Projects, Inc., the project manager for the proposed renovation and addition, said the timing will never be better in terms of financing a construction project. Interest rates are still fairly low, he said, and construction costs will only increase.

In other action Monday night, the selectmen voted to recommend favorable action on $1.45 million in spending proposed by the Capital Planning Committee, including police cruisers and radios, Fire Department protective equipment and a command vehicle, equipment for the Park Department and DPW, replacement of the roof and money toward parking lot repaving at the Council on Aging, new voting booths, a vehicle for the animal control officer, carpeting in the library, boiler renovations and replacements and other repairs and renovations in the schools, and the continuation of the School Department's computer upgrade program.

A total of $250,000 will come from taxation, $811,495 from borrowing, and $390,482 in "free cash" from the past fiscal year.

The selectmen also voted to endorse three projects proposed by the Community Preservation Committee: $20,000 toward new windows at the Nemasket senior housing complex, about $49,000 for the rehabilitation of portions of the historic farm house and barn at the Soule Homestead, and $77,184 for completion of the rehabilitation of the former Green School, which will be used by town committees.

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